Day 50----
Pulling the wooden spoon across the bottom of the pot then pausing to watch the divided sides of porridge rejoin while I half listen to the radio. They are talking about the effects of Covid-19 on gang activity in Chicago... I'm learning about organizations I always wondered about their existence--anti-violence groups who aren't cops. Weird that after living there even I'm only hearing about this during the global pandemic when they can't do their job--while I'm over stirring porridge for the pleasure of the red sea divide.
My grandpa died two years ago today. I woke up with a stiff neck and can't bend it.
30.4.20
29.4.20
Day 49----
While I peed this morning bambi whimpered in the doorway the whole time. And the cat jumped up on the bathroom stool, looked me in the eye and swiped my book off the stool-- it landed in her water bowl, side swiping her food bowl, scattering dried food all across the bathroom floor.
reading: a damp Live or Die by Anne Sexton. Some of the poetry was quite good but I don't think I like her much.
While I peed this morning bambi whimpered in the doorway the whole time. And the cat jumped up on the bathroom stool, looked me in the eye and swiped my book off the stool-- it landed in her water bowl, side swiping her food bowl, scattering dried food all across the bathroom floor.
reading: a damp Live or Die by Anne Sexton. Some of the poetry was quite good but I don't think I like her much.
28.4.20
27.4.20
Day 47----
Today lacked structure. I was on my phone a lot. I cleared out a drawer looking for an eraser and found an old mock up for a bookmark I never made for the bookcart. It said, "Saturdays, 3pm (unless rain, disease, etc)".
I'll never make a joke in private again.
reading: The Vagrants by Yiyun Li-- one of the reasons I was on my phone so much: having to google every event and revolutionary mentioned.
Today lacked structure. I was on my phone a lot. I cleared out a drawer looking for an eraser and found an old mock up for a bookmark I never made for the bookcart. It said, "Saturdays, 3pm (unless rain, disease, etc)".
I'll never make a joke in private again.
reading: The Vagrants by Yiyun Li-- one of the reasons I was on my phone so much: having to google every event and revolutionary mentioned.
26.4.20
Day 46----
I wear glasses all day more often now. The new ones fit better, are prettier, etc, but mostly just why not.
The first sip of tea once breakfast is made--clouds-- and I'm trying to listen to the radio story of coronavirus reuniting a man with his estranged mother and my three year old asking why they aren't "playing the news" instead --clears, as I explain Sunday radio programming, omitting the bit where the morning news show host just died on Friday.
Oh and the earlier clouding as I pour the water over the grounds, waiting both for the bloom and the clearing to continue pouring. As I lift the lid to check on the porridge progress--cloud and clear.
The half forgotten instances from childhood in a very rainy corner of the country--the first minute or two when I burst into the Wheelock Branch Library, Tacoma, Wa. The blind fumble for any scrap of fabric both dry and non-woolen--surely the only option can't be my underwear.
It's raining again. Sometimes I wonder if New York is rainier then Washington... certainly now it might be. The clouding of cold rain and warm shops won't be a problem here today.
The brief cloud of panicked breath in a mask--now maybe that.
The cloud while reading from turtle necked pulled over my lower face against the damp greyness pervading the apartment--certainly that.
And now bambi is watching Ponyo again--that steam filled kitchen clouding windows as the mom (is she the best portrayal of motherhood for children? possibly.) stuffs greens into the pot. As she pours boiling water over the kids' noodles, "Careful! It's hot!" clouds of steam "Don't peek, Ponyo! Abracadabra!" their faces disappear in it as they dance in place with glee. Bambi turns to me, "can I have that too? When this is done and you make me honey tea? And you say 'cadabra!!' like that??!"
I wear glasses all day more often now. The new ones fit better, are prettier, etc, but mostly just why not.
The first sip of tea once breakfast is made--clouds-- and I'm trying to listen to the radio story of coronavirus reuniting a man with his estranged mother and my three year old asking why they aren't "playing the news" instead --clears, as I explain Sunday radio programming, omitting the bit where the morning news show host just died on Friday.
Oh and the earlier clouding as I pour the water over the grounds, waiting both for the bloom and the clearing to continue pouring. As I lift the lid to check on the porridge progress--cloud and clear.
The half forgotten instances from childhood in a very rainy corner of the country--the first minute or two when I burst into the Wheelock Branch Library, Tacoma, Wa. The blind fumble for any scrap of fabric both dry and non-woolen--surely the only option can't be my underwear.
It's raining again. Sometimes I wonder if New York is rainier then Washington... certainly now it might be. The clouding of cold rain and warm shops won't be a problem here today.
The brief cloud of panicked breath in a mask--now maybe that.
The cloud while reading from turtle necked pulled over my lower face against the damp greyness pervading the apartment--certainly that.
And now bambi is watching Ponyo again--that steam filled kitchen clouding windows as the mom (is she the best portrayal of motherhood for children? possibly.) stuffs greens into the pot. As she pours boiling water over the kids' noodles, "Careful! It's hot!" clouds of steam "Don't peek, Ponyo! Abracadabra!" their faces disappear in it as they dance in place with glee. Bambi turns to me, "can I have that too? When this is done and you make me honey tea? And you say 'cadabra!!' like that??!"
25.4.20
24.4.20
Day 44----
It's late friday afternoon and so quiet. I'm sitting at the kitchen table here in the back of the apartment--I can hear bambi murmuring to her animals and dolls in the "liver room", a mourning dove cooing in the air shaft. Every now and then a bus passes four stories below on rain soaked streets--no other traffic really--just busses and ambulances.
I just made bambi some popcorn and I'm drinking a little coffee--normally I stick with tea lately but I forgot to make it and jesse had some coffee leftover in the silver pot.
Before this I regularly had an afternoon coffee. Take out from the local spot on the way to the playground to drink there or on the church steps or drunk hastily as I push the stroller to the library so I don't doze in the warmth and safety of it all. But now I prefer tea if I'm making things at home.
We've written letters to my grandmas and bambi's... no nap... but oddly pleasant. I gave her a book I've had stashed away. To fill up the last hour or so before dinner. In the dim and quiet of end of week.
It's late friday afternoon and so quiet. I'm sitting at the kitchen table here in the back of the apartment--I can hear bambi murmuring to her animals and dolls in the "liver room", a mourning dove cooing in the air shaft. Every now and then a bus passes four stories below on rain soaked streets--no other traffic really--just busses and ambulances.
I just made bambi some popcorn and I'm drinking a little coffee--normally I stick with tea lately but I forgot to make it and jesse had some coffee leftover in the silver pot.
Before this I regularly had an afternoon coffee. Take out from the local spot on the way to the playground to drink there or on the church steps or drunk hastily as I push the stroller to the library so I don't doze in the warmth and safety of it all. But now I prefer tea if I'm making things at home.
We've written letters to my grandmas and bambi's... no nap... but oddly pleasant. I gave her a book I've had stashed away. To fill up the last hour or so before dinner. In the dim and quiet of end of week.
23.4.20
Day 43----
I wrote a lot again. That's coming easier and I just read a bit from another Ostriker book that's reinforced my resolve on writing everything down. Even at the point of isolation where I spend a lot of time analyzing the cat hairs, bits of clay, and other unknown objects in the matted piles of my very cheap rug on which I am laying because bambi and the cat have taken over the whole couch while they watch Kiki's Delivery Service and sleep, respectively. I just lay there and write it all down.
I wrote a lot again. That's coming easier and I just read a bit from another Ostriker book that's reinforced my resolve on writing everything down. Even at the point of isolation where I spend a lot of time analyzing the cat hairs, bits of clay, and other unknown objects in the matted piles of my very cheap rug on which I am laying because bambi and the cat have taken over the whole couch while they watch Kiki's Delivery Service and sleep, respectively. I just lay there and write it all down.
"The writer who is a mother should, I think, record everything she can: make notes, keep journals, take photographs, use a tape recorder, and remind herself that there is a subject of incalculably vast significance to humanity, about which virtually nothing is known because writers have not been mothers."
-Alicia Suskin Ostriker, Writing Like a Woman p. 131This is becoming less and less true now, nevertheless, I will still keep on. I was thinking about the years of otherness I felt when I was a nanny--spending every waking moment and often the sleeping ones too with children but never accepted as a mother. And then the time after the miscarriage, as an invisible mother. And when the nannying and that overlapped. A side effect of the othering of the voice of mothers-- telling women to keep it to themselves-- is the exclusive click of motherhood. The looking down on women who are not mothers. This is especially true in a church setting where motherhood is the only acceptable role/ the assumed goal of all women (but please shut up about it--you sound desperate). Therefore, a women who isn't must just be pining for motherhood or an enemy of it--either option are pitiable and exclusion worthy in the eyes of the in crowd.
22.4.20
Day 42----
I'm beginning to wonder if we are being paranoid by not going out for walks even. It is suspicious that this wondering aligns with the first sunny day in some time-- but most people are going out for daily walks. With masks, obviously, but still. In the UK they're even encouraged to get out for one hour a day. It could be that I'm just seeing people going out for walks on social media who live near Central Park or one of the other big parks. And London has so much more green space. My friend who lives up in the Bronx with three small boys, her husband and her mom hasn't taken her kids out in weeks. So I think that must be it. She says there's not enough space to take them out. That's also true here in Chinatown. I go on and on about that. But it's never been so starkly evidenced as it is now.
I wrote a lot more today. It was a napless day and I didn't take a photo to record it. To record the impatience and despair that the lack of alone time induces in me. The swift tears and shouts in her. But I sat down and wrote a lot.
I'm beginning to wonder if we are being paranoid by not going out for walks even. It is suspicious that this wondering aligns with the first sunny day in some time-- but most people are going out for daily walks. With masks, obviously, but still. In the UK they're even encouraged to get out for one hour a day. It could be that I'm just seeing people going out for walks on social media who live near Central Park or one of the other big parks. And London has so much more green space. My friend who lives up in the Bronx with three small boys, her husband and her mom hasn't taken her kids out in weeks. So I think that must be it. She says there's not enough space to take them out. That's also true here in Chinatown. I go on and on about that. But it's never been so starkly evidenced as it is now.
I wrote a lot more today. It was a napless day and I didn't take a photo to record it. To record the impatience and despair that the lack of alone time induces in me. The swift tears and shouts in her. But I sat down and wrote a lot.
21.4.20
20.4.20
Day 40----
Breathes inside a mask are never quite enough--
walk faster--
get there and back--
is this six feet? Before, behind and to my side?--
I've never known. Maybe they know--
they do not. Did I remember to smile?--
so they can see it in my eyes?
Did they communicate all I cannot with my mouth before or now--
my ally-ship?
I'm not afraid.
This distance is for you and me.
My gratitude for your culture of mask wearing.
My you were right and we were wrong.
The fact that I will always wear a mask for any illness now on.
My neighbor, I miss our silent companionships.
Our nods on sun-baked sidewalk homes for cats.
over our children's play, while we sit fearlessly side by side.
All that in one split hold of eye--
then back to measuring the distances
between you and me and lobster homes.
Breathes inside a mask are never quite enough--
walk faster--
get there and back--
is this six feet? Before, behind and to my side?--
I've never known. Maybe they know--
they do not. Did I remember to smile?--
so they can see it in my eyes?
Did they communicate all I cannot with my mouth before or now--
my ally-ship?
I'm not afraid.
This distance is for you and me.
My gratitude for your culture of mask wearing.
My you were right and we were wrong.
The fact that I will always wear a mask for any illness now on.
My neighbor, I miss our silent companionships.
Our nods on sun-baked sidewalk homes for cats.
over our children's play, while we sit fearlessly side by side.
All that in one split hold of eye--
then back to measuring the distances
between you and me and lobster homes.
19.4.20
Day 39----
The breezes are room temperature again--that temperature where you can lie naked on top of your bed in intermitted sunbeams, caressed by wind and man.
reading: Feminist Revision and the Bible by Alicia Suskin Ostriker. Every other sentence prompted me to pull more and more and more books of poetry off my shelves. Never have I been prouder of my library--that they were all there at my fingertips. I emerged from a haze at the end of naptime surrounded by a precarious nest of poetry.
Actually, before she woke, jesse asked me if I felt smarter than him, as he gazed at me furiously reading ten books at once, making notes in all. He said that when we first got married he thought he was smarter (ha!) and that I was fiercely anti-intellectual but that now he doesn't think that and he worries that I'll be bored by him. I object slightly--I obviously was smart enough back then to know that intellectualism wasn't intelligence--often to the detriment of my own image. His friends did not think I was smart at all and I felt very superior and smug that they were so shallow and college-y to misread the situation so deeply. BUT, I think I'm still anti-intellectual. I hate being inconsistent. And I know that people think people who read are automatically intellectual but that's bullshit. Maybe I'm cleverer about how I am an anti-intellectual now, but I still am. That's why I call the bookcart Common Books. I'm opposed to books as the intellectual version of get rich quick schemes. They should be for pure joy. If it bores you, toss it out the fucking window. And I think women writers should be household names just as much--more even--than the coiner of that phrase is.
That said, it does give me joy to be able to draw from an ever increasing pile of poetry. AND THAT IS NOT INTELLECTUAL.
Also, I am not smarter than jesse. Very equally smart. I concluded and he did too.
Lucille Clifton on Mary:
"i wonder/ could i have fought these thing?... i wonder/ could i have walked away when voices/ singing in my sleep?"
-"island mary" from good woman p. 202
"woman shook by the / awe full affection of the saints." p. 203
"so many eyes. such light, ... /joseph, i shine, oh joseph, oh/ illuminated night."
-"holy night" p. 200
When "ecstasy becomes normalcy" for Mary -Alicia Suskin Ostriker (Feminist Revision and the Bible p. 85).
The thoughts of women-- I always replace the thoughts of the mother in Blueberries for Sal, I vary it each time a little--bambi expects it and nods approvingly now--but I am always thinking too small. Making her think about "the novel she's writing" or the dissertation, or the ... just like a kid saying what they want to be when they grow up. These though, THESE are the real thoughts... exactly what Mary must have grappled with the rest of her life. Her mind never again quiet.
Sometimes I think I hear, in the silence left behind the M-15, a beer can bounce down the street.
And then I realize, that that is what I heard.
The breezes are room temperature again--that temperature where you can lie naked on top of your bed in intermitted sunbeams, caressed by wind and man.
reading: Feminist Revision and the Bible by Alicia Suskin Ostriker. Every other sentence prompted me to pull more and more and more books of poetry off my shelves. Never have I been prouder of my library--that they were all there at my fingertips. I emerged from a haze at the end of naptime surrounded by a precarious nest of poetry.
Actually, before she woke, jesse asked me if I felt smarter than him, as he gazed at me furiously reading ten books at once, making notes in all. He said that when we first got married he thought he was smarter (ha!) and that I was fiercely anti-intellectual but that now he doesn't think that and he worries that I'll be bored by him. I object slightly--I obviously was smart enough back then to know that intellectualism wasn't intelligence--often to the detriment of my own image. His friends did not think I was smart at all and I felt very superior and smug that they were so shallow and college-y to misread the situation so deeply. BUT, I think I'm still anti-intellectual. I hate being inconsistent. And I know that people think people who read are automatically intellectual but that's bullshit. Maybe I'm cleverer about how I am an anti-intellectual now, but I still am. That's why I call the bookcart Common Books. I'm opposed to books as the intellectual version of get rich quick schemes. They should be for pure joy. If it bores you, toss it out the fucking window. And I think women writers should be household names just as much--more even--than the coiner of that phrase is.
That said, it does give me joy to be able to draw from an ever increasing pile of poetry. AND THAT IS NOT INTELLECTUAL.
Also, I am not smarter than jesse. Very equally smart. I concluded and he did too.
Lucille Clifton on Mary:
"i wonder/ could i have fought these thing?... i wonder/ could i have walked away when voices/ singing in my sleep?"
-"island mary" from good woman p. 202
"woman shook by the / awe full affection of the saints." p. 203
"so many eyes. such light, ... /joseph, i shine, oh joseph, oh/ illuminated night."
-"holy night" p. 200
When "ecstasy becomes normalcy" for Mary -Alicia Suskin Ostriker (Feminist Revision and the Bible p. 85).
The thoughts of women-- I always replace the thoughts of the mother in Blueberries for Sal, I vary it each time a little--bambi expects it and nods approvingly now--but I am always thinking too small. Making her think about "the novel she's writing" or the dissertation, or the ... just like a kid saying what they want to be when they grow up. These though, THESE are the real thoughts... exactly what Mary must have grappled with the rest of her life. Her mind never again quiet.
Sometimes I think I hear, in the silence left behind the M-15, a beer can bounce down the street.
And then I realize, that that is what I heard.
18.4.20
17.4.20
Day 37----
Things I do now: wash tinfoil. make anyone in earshot pause and listen to the mourning dove--the one who murmurs all day long. Sirens and turtle doves. And piles of books for a 20 min moment alone. To decide what to read next.
Several people I vaguely know have gotten book deals these past few weeks. I want that too. And everytime someone asks if and when I'm writing I feel relief and unease. I don't want the privilege of writing. I want to fit it in with something else. And never get criticized. So I'll be further behind these people. I already am so I guess I'm on track, with that.
I'll just keep reading for now.
reading: Autumn by Ali Smith--why not pretend it's fall. Or just not care that I'm reading out of season. Governor's Island announced that it would not open on May 1. They don't know when. And that is summer. They also announced that NYC public pools would not open this season at all.
Also, I couldn't find Spring.
Things I do now: wash tinfoil. make anyone in earshot pause and listen to the mourning dove--the one who murmurs all day long. Sirens and turtle doves. And piles of books for a 20 min moment alone. To decide what to read next.
Several people I vaguely know have gotten book deals these past few weeks. I want that too. And everytime someone asks if and when I'm writing I feel relief and unease. I don't want the privilege of writing. I want to fit it in with something else. And never get criticized. So I'll be further behind these people. I already am so I guess I'm on track, with that.
I'll just keep reading for now.
reading: Autumn by Ali Smith--why not pretend it's fall. Or just not care that I'm reading out of season. Governor's Island announced that it would not open on May 1. They don't know when. And that is summer. They also announced that NYC public pools would not open this season at all.
Also, I couldn't find Spring.
Day 36----
The sound of gears changing on a delivery person's bike-- alone in the deserted street.
Somehow essential.
Our neighbor's lights through the reflection of our own.
"It's funny to be sitting in such an uncommunal communal chair." -Ali Smith Autumn
reading: finished A Misalliance by Anita Brookner. I get the hype now. I do not get how Hotel du Lac won the Booker--a limp, apathetic book who's only virtue was it's brevity. But this one--this one delivers the heavy weight of trapped women.
The sound of gears changing on a delivery person's bike-- alone in the deserted street.
Somehow essential.
Our neighbor's lights through the reflection of our own.
"It's funny to be sitting in such an uncommunal communal chair." -Ali Smith Autumn
reading: finished A Misalliance by Anita Brookner. I get the hype now. I do not get how Hotel du Lac won the Booker--a limp, apathetic book who's only virtue was it's brevity. But this one--this one delivers the heavy weight of trapped women.
Day 35----
grocery delivery day-- and wine. The feelings of having it too good are worse during a pandemic. As they should be. Then I wonder if it's worse to feel guilty. Rather than grateful. Cause guilt usually eclipses that.
such a cavalier day--I didn't wash her hands after she did this. I didn't think of it. Then did. Then there was nothing to be done and I think I'm numb? A saturation point where your brain can't worry anymore.
but it was a euphoria too-- the peace of mind having fresh produce, she napped, it was sunny and I sat on the fire escape.
then we had small group on zoom-- I don't have any friends close enough, here or elsewhere, close enough to miss.
grocery delivery day-- and wine. The feelings of having it too good are worse during a pandemic. As they should be. Then I wonder if it's worse to feel guilty. Rather than grateful. Cause guilt usually eclipses that.
such a cavalier day--I didn't wash her hands after she did this. I didn't think of it. Then did. Then there was nothing to be done and I think I'm numb? A saturation point where your brain can't worry anymore.
but it was a euphoria too-- the peace of mind having fresh produce, she napped, it was sunny and I sat on the fire escape.
then we had small group on zoom-- I don't have any friends close enough, here or elsewhere, close enough to miss.
14.4.20
Day 34----
I'm trying to teach the concept of quiet time... ostensibly to bambi but really to myself... learning that I don't actually know what I'm trying to teach. Around mid morning everyday this past week or so --that moment where I'm so bored of being Storkie, Mama Koala, Mog, Baby Deer, etc that I'm tempted to get out my phone out--or, in today's case, when bambi says, "HEY! Mama! get off your phone." and I realize I've been on it for awhile. So I set a timer for thirty minutes and got her and myself a big stack of books respectively (I finished another yesterday so I get to chose a new one today--or was supposed to but she didn't nap), sat on either side of the couch with the books on top of pillows on our laps. It was mostly loud and not at all quiet but it separated activities and she sat like this for a few minutes. "Reading" aloud to herself, "One day Cece stood there waiting for herself..." entirely not what the book says and entirely exactly what quiet time is.
However this didn't prepare her properly for a nap like past quiet times have done so I'll keep tweaking.
After her nap failed cacophonously, I pretended to be a librarian at the circulation desk and let her check out her games and puzzles one at a time and put her (my) library card in a box just like the one the Seward Park librarians use. Which is how this is getting written at this moment.
I'm trying to teach the concept of quiet time... ostensibly to bambi but really to myself... learning that I don't actually know what I'm trying to teach. Around mid morning everyday this past week or so --that moment where I'm so bored of being Storkie, Mama Koala, Mog, Baby Deer, etc that I'm tempted to get out my phone out--or, in today's case, when bambi says, "HEY! Mama! get off your phone." and I realize I've been on it for awhile. So I set a timer for thirty minutes and got her and myself a big stack of books respectively (I finished another yesterday so I get to chose a new one today--or was supposed to but she didn't nap), sat on either side of the couch with the books on top of pillows on our laps. It was mostly loud and not at all quiet but it separated activities and she sat like this for a few minutes. "Reading" aloud to herself, "One day Cece stood there waiting for herself..." entirely not what the book says and entirely exactly what quiet time is.
However this didn't prepare her properly for a nap like past quiet times have done so I'll keep tweaking.
After her nap failed cacophonously, I pretended to be a librarian at the circulation desk and let her check out her games and puzzles one at a time and put her (my) library card in a box just like the one the Seward Park librarians use. Which is how this is getting written at this moment.
13.4.20
Day 33----
All through the nights sounds drift up from the street as if the speakers and walkers are doing so at the foot of our bed. We hear fill conversations--even whispered ones, murmurs of laughter, sighs even in all this silence. This isn't to say there're many people out... hardly any, that's why the ones that are are so audible. That and the no traffic besides busses and ambulances. And I don't grudge the ones who are out--the NYC emergency billets have asked people to take their outdoor time at odd hours to reduce contact.
A few of the conversations from the past few nights--
a woman across the street: "You got pot?"
very confusedly, man on our side of street: "What???"
--"YOU GOT WEED?"
--"What!! No!!"
a solitary man in a low phone conversation: "I just smoke weed so I don't smoke cigarettes."
People talk about stuff besides weed. Just not these last few nights.
All through the nights sounds drift up from the street as if the speakers and walkers are doing so at the foot of our bed. We hear fill conversations--even whispered ones, murmurs of laughter, sighs even in all this silence. This isn't to say there're many people out... hardly any, that's why the ones that are are so audible. That and the no traffic besides busses and ambulances. And I don't grudge the ones who are out--the NYC emergency billets have asked people to take their outdoor time at odd hours to reduce contact.
A few of the conversations from the past few nights--
a woman across the street: "You got pot?"
very confusedly, man on our side of street: "What???"
--"YOU GOT WEED?"
--"What!! No!!"
a solitary man in a low phone conversation: "I just smoke weed so I don't smoke cigarettes."
People talk about stuff besides weed. Just not these last few nights.
12.4.20
Day 32----
A friend wrote to me today saying, "I miss window shopping." And she's right. All the things I miss the most are the free things-- public things.Wandering into shops, holding a mug in my hand to feel the fit and putting it back. Drinking a sly bottle of wine with our feet dangling in the Washington Square Park fountain. Laying in grass. Seeing trees, any tree at all. That patch of grass on Governor's Island with the ramshackle porch and the view of my home. Leaning against the rail and feeling the salt spray on my face at the East River under the FDR, just two blocks from here. Sitting on park benches. My library. The ease of sitting on a grubby rug in a public library, leaning against a shelf with my book while my kid turns strangers into friends surrounded by shared toys (and thinking, "she's building immunities when she not-so-pretends to drink from a plastic tea cup), games, puzzles, tins of broken crayons and a pile of scrap paper.
All the reasons I live in New York City.
And so we wait.
And revel in hearing voices from behind every door in our apartment building while I take the garbage down.
easter sunday, 2020
reading: The Mother/Child Papers by Alicia Suskin Ostriker
-I'm not finished and have a lot of thoughts about it for later.
A friend wrote to me today saying, "I miss window shopping." And she's right. All the things I miss the most are the free things-- public things.Wandering into shops, holding a mug in my hand to feel the fit and putting it back. Drinking a sly bottle of wine with our feet dangling in the Washington Square Park fountain. Laying in grass. Seeing trees, any tree at all. That patch of grass on Governor's Island with the ramshackle porch and the view of my home. Leaning against the rail and feeling the salt spray on my face at the East River under the FDR, just two blocks from here. Sitting on park benches. My library. The ease of sitting on a grubby rug in a public library, leaning against a shelf with my book while my kid turns strangers into friends surrounded by shared toys (and thinking, "she's building immunities when she not-so-pretends to drink from a plastic tea cup), games, puzzles, tins of broken crayons and a pile of scrap paper.
All the reasons I live in New York City.
And so we wait.
And revel in hearing voices from behind every door in our apartment building while I take the garbage down.
easter sunday, 2020
reading: The Mother/Child Papers by Alicia Suskin Ostriker
-I'm not finished and have a lot of thoughts about it for later.
11.4.20
Day 31----
A healthful tonic of a way to ring in one month of isolation--the least solitary solitude ever imposed on an introvert.
We've stumbled on a new routine of 30-40 min of quiet time in the mornings for all of us, then lunch and whatever phone calls or art or more animal hospital boat games till the full naptime in the afternoon. Jesse and I both finished books, started new ones (I finished the new one too--it was a novella though) and got better at alone time together.
Later we had wine and watched the new home video exhibit from MOMA that's online cause no one can go in person. We haven't been there in person in ages cause it's not a free museum and we don't have time to wait in line for the free night that opens at bambi's bedtime. We also are better at attending church now.
In some ways--many-- my brain was made for this. But then I yearn for Governor's Island, Washington Square, Seward Park Library, even Central Park. The Rose Reading Room all on my own. Pushing through turnstyles, reading against the subway door, laying on grass, just seeing a tree.
reading/read: As We Are Now by May Sarton
-a woman abandoned in an old person's home--mathematical poetry, theology, notebooks, waiting for snow drifts and revenge.
A healthful tonic of a way to ring in one month of isolation--the least solitary solitude ever imposed on an introvert.
We've stumbled on a new routine of 30-40 min of quiet time in the mornings for all of us, then lunch and whatever phone calls or art or more animal hospital boat games till the full naptime in the afternoon. Jesse and I both finished books, started new ones (I finished the new one too--it was a novella though) and got better at alone time together.
Later we had wine and watched the new home video exhibit from MOMA that's online cause no one can go in person. We haven't been there in person in ages cause it's not a free museum and we don't have time to wait in line for the free night that opens at bambi's bedtime. We also are better at attending church now.
In some ways--many-- my brain was made for this. But then I yearn for Governor's Island, Washington Square, Seward Park Library, even Central Park. The Rose Reading Room all on my own. Pushing through turnstyles, reading against the subway door, laying on grass, just seeing a tree.
reading/read: As We Are Now by May Sarton
-a woman abandoned in an old person's home--mathematical poetry, theology, notebooks, waiting for snow drifts and revenge.
10.4.20
Day 30----
I read!--nearly a whole book today! I feel my humanness seeping back into my brain...I'm sure it's visible in my face, my hands, my shoulders. The pinch between my eyes less cavernous. The clinching of my body whenever anyone touched me, even the cat, slowly rolling away with each page turned, each half hour passed of this still happening nap. The first in six days. Someone besides myself made me tea... he brought it to me as I wrote at my desk... then sheepishly asked if he could have the room so he could have a phone call with his partner from work. I couldn't even remember what this felt like anymore. I feel bad that I need this time so much. But I feel no doubt that I do. I was even considering waking up at 5am to get two hours to myself--odds are she'd wake up then too and then I'd get none of the time and all the over-tiredness. I don't see any way around this need for naps still.
reading: I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
How have I gone thirty-one years without reading this?? This is one of those things that makes me want to do so much better by my bambi. I know most schools assign this. She will read this before she leaves home. And she will never go to a private school. The kind of place that makes itself the arbitrator of correct literature, the police of women and anyone of color. That thinks Uncle Tom's Cabin, Huck Finn and Othello are the maximum nod necessary to the liberal obsession with "diversity".
I'm furious that the only women I knew could write were children's writers or mystery/spy writers ("candy reads" as my dad dubbed them), Jane Austen, and Charlotte Bronte (not Emily haha). All white, all old or dead. Angelou's prose is at a level I --and he-- could never believe possible. And that is his and my past's desperate loss.
I find it interesting that I could not read my Sarton, Adrienne Rich, Margaret Atwood-- all of whom are excellent and there's absolutely value in their writing. But right now, in a time of global crisis, I needed to read the true narrative of someone, one voice among many, who's entire life would qualify as a global crisis if it happened to a white person. To grow up black and female in the US in the 1930s, to do so now still-- is to live with the gravitas, the fear, the slightest edge of which we are now all experiencing. And communities of color so much more.
I read!--nearly a whole book today! I feel my humanness seeping back into my brain...I'm sure it's visible in my face, my hands, my shoulders. The pinch between my eyes less cavernous. The clinching of my body whenever anyone touched me, even the cat, slowly rolling away with each page turned, each half hour passed of this still happening nap. The first in six days. Someone besides myself made me tea... he brought it to me as I wrote at my desk... then sheepishly asked if he could have the room so he could have a phone call with his partner from work. I couldn't even remember what this felt like anymore. I feel bad that I need this time so much. But I feel no doubt that I do. I was even considering waking up at 5am to get two hours to myself--odds are she'd wake up then too and then I'd get none of the time and all the over-tiredness. I don't see any way around this need for naps still.
reading: I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
How have I gone thirty-one years without reading this?? This is one of those things that makes me want to do so much better by my bambi. I know most schools assign this. She will read this before she leaves home. And she will never go to a private school. The kind of place that makes itself the arbitrator of correct literature, the police of women and anyone of color. That thinks Uncle Tom's Cabin, Huck Finn and Othello are the maximum nod necessary to the liberal obsession with "diversity".
I'm furious that the only women I knew could write were children's writers or mystery/spy writers ("candy reads" as my dad dubbed them), Jane Austen, and Charlotte Bronte (not Emily haha). All white, all old or dead. Angelou's prose is at a level I --and he-- could never believe possible. And that is his and my past's desperate loss.
I find it interesting that I could not read my Sarton, Adrienne Rich, Margaret Atwood-- all of whom are excellent and there's absolutely value in their writing. But right now, in a time of global crisis, I needed to read the true narrative of someone, one voice among many, who's entire life would qualify as a global crisis if it happened to a white person. To grow up black and female in the US in the 1930s, to do so now still-- is to live with the gravitas, the fear, the slightest edge of which we are now all experiencing. And communities of color so much more.
9.4.20
Day 29----
Both our humanities slipping away on the wave after wave of naplessness. This was never meant to be a record of a toddler's naps. But toddlers fill the empty hours--her humanness pushing out mine. That's not what a mother is supposed to think. But when there's no time to be a human, no silence, no room to not be touched--there's nothing left for either of us. Or jesse either.
Both our humanities slipping away on the wave after wave of naplessness. This was never meant to be a record of a toddler's naps. But toddlers fill the empty hours--her humanness pushing out mine. That's not what a mother is supposed to think. But when there's no time to be a human, no silence, no room to not be touched--there's nothing left for either of us. Or jesse either.
8.4.20
Day 28----
I've been showering in the early evening before dinner because jesse is home and I can and I really need the alone time. I can still hear things when the shower is running but I can't distinguish where, who, real or imagined sounds. When I turn the water off I freeze for a moment or two to untangle all the sounds. The loud, rhythmic chopping block sound? downstairs neighbors. The still running water? --this takes a bit longer to figure out--jesse washing the stove top. The one sided murmur? jesse's phone conversation with his mom. The Irish puffins? bambi's tv show. The persistent alarm? in my head.
I've been showering in the early evening before dinner because jesse is home and I can and I really need the alone time. I can still hear things when the shower is running but I can't distinguish where, who, real or imagined sounds. When I turn the water off I freeze for a moment or two to untangle all the sounds. The loud, rhythmic chopping block sound? downstairs neighbors. The still running water? --this takes a bit longer to figure out--jesse washing the stove top. The one sided murmur? jesse's phone conversation with his mom. The Irish puffins? bambi's tv show. The persistent alarm? in my head.
7.4.20
Day 27----
laundry again-- bambi to my mother-in-law on facetime: "our laundromat closed and so we made a new one-- and we can never leave."
laundry again-- bambi to my mother-in-law on facetime: "our laundromat closed and so we made a new one-- and we can never leave."
another napless day-- I lifted load after load of laundry and stared at poetry without registering a word and scrolled and scrolled on my phone, also without registering.
6.4.20
5.4.20
Day 25----
The sirens seem more frequent than the trains on the Manhattan Bridge now. And it clicked today that, no, there aren't more birds than normal this spring, its just so quiet now (aside from the sirens) that I can hear them all day instead of just the dawn songs over bambi boobing it up every morning (still).
I can't focus on reading anything right now. I think its a self absorption that comes from trauma that makes you enable to take in anything that's not directly related to you and the very specific situation you are in-- you know the one called "novel" because no one has ever even fathomed it could be a possibility outside of fantasy apocalypse writers. I'm barely hanging on with a book that could be a memoir of my own conservative, christian, sexist childhood but even with that I keep feeling anger at the ease of movement throughout. I wish I could get into something that I identify with only abstractly or aesthetically but not so far. I keep starting books and drifting away--leaving precarious piles behind me.
Chinatown has finally caught on with the rest of the city, clapping at 7pm for essential workers (I think its technically for healthcare workers but I'm telling bambi its for them and also for cashiers, postal workers, garbage-people?? that can't be right, but neither is garbage men). We joined a few voices and she yelled "Thank YOU" in her baby voice through the grime covered screen. And I tried to cheer but it caught in my throat and sounded rat like. She cried and cried and cried in my arms earlier in the evening, every curl become moist and tight, and I rocked her and rocked her and rocked her.
The sirens seem more frequent than the trains on the Manhattan Bridge now. And it clicked today that, no, there aren't more birds than normal this spring, its just so quiet now (aside from the sirens) that I can hear them all day instead of just the dawn songs over bambi boobing it up every morning (still).
I can't focus on reading anything right now. I think its a self absorption that comes from trauma that makes you enable to take in anything that's not directly related to you and the very specific situation you are in-- you know the one called "novel" because no one has ever even fathomed it could be a possibility outside of fantasy apocalypse writers. I'm barely hanging on with a book that could be a memoir of my own conservative, christian, sexist childhood but even with that I keep feeling anger at the ease of movement throughout. I wish I could get into something that I identify with only abstractly or aesthetically but not so far. I keep starting books and drifting away--leaving precarious piles behind me.
Chinatown has finally caught on with the rest of the city, clapping at 7pm for essential workers (I think its technically for healthcare workers but I'm telling bambi its for them and also for cashiers, postal workers, garbage-people?? that can't be right, but neither is garbage men). We joined a few voices and she yelled "Thank YOU" in her baby voice through the grime covered screen. And I tried to cheer but it caught in my throat and sounded rat like. She cried and cried and cried in my arms earlier in the evening, every curl become moist and tight, and I rocked her and rocked her and rocked her.
4.4.20
Day 24----
This feels inappropriate to say--it is inappropriate to say this. But also, I bet a lot of people think this way: I get some kind of reassurance from the fact that I'm experiencing this from the current epicenter. To know that this is the global worst right--it gives me mental significance to the incessant sirens and the ripples of anxiety that flow between the three of us here. Does that make sense? The three of us alone in the biggest city in the US. And yet, even looking out on the street below feels alone. Even living in the epicenter, I am not the epicenter. Everyday, as death counts rise and rise and rise, I realize more and more, exactly how few people I know.
The only person we still see who we know is Charlie the super and he doesn't even nod. He is always so busy sorting garbage across the street and helping Comcast employees or staring off into space with his insufficient mask dangling around his neck. He looks so scared. How does all this rest on him?? It's so unfair.
People keep posting guilt tripping statements about how what we do right now shows our true colors about --insert whatever cause they talk about normally-- and how easy it is to just do the safe thing but how we will be judged by how we helped during this time. Or how we did not. And all the while our mayor and governor and CDC say, "do not leave your home. Do not come in contact with anyone." And I worry about jesse's weird undiagnosed lung thing that may or may not exist but what if it did. And they say its not bad for kids but what if they find out later it is. And random people keep asking if I'm at risk because of my auto immune disease and I didn't think I was but it's unnerving being asked. And what if I help our neighbors and get them sick. But are these all just excuses?
I went out yesterday-- so empty but also so many essential workers. People still riding busses. Postal workers still taking contaminated mail, their counters taped over with plastic wrap to the ceiling but that does nothing if the person mailing something has sneezed in the last fifteen minutes before standing at their counter. Cops still helping scared, scurrying, masked people cross the street around abandoned street construction sites--how do you stay six feet away from someone who can't leave the middle of the cross walk??? And grocery store employees, not even paid a living wage, who suddenly find themselves essential workers... who live with elderly relatives because, again, they aren't paid a living wage. Photos of subway cars filled with minority, hourly workers float accusingly before our homebound eyes. How can I do nothing???? What can I do????
I desperately want to check in with our downstairs neighbors but I'm afraid that even a note will be contaminated and kill them. I want to apologize for our dance parties and stools made into strollers by a three year old and dragged relentlessly across their ceiling.
This feels inappropriate to say--it is inappropriate to say this. But also, I bet a lot of people think this way: I get some kind of reassurance from the fact that I'm experiencing this from the current epicenter. To know that this is the global worst right--it gives me mental significance to the incessant sirens and the ripples of anxiety that flow between the three of us here. Does that make sense? The three of us alone in the biggest city in the US. And yet, even looking out on the street below feels alone. Even living in the epicenter, I am not the epicenter. Everyday, as death counts rise and rise and rise, I realize more and more, exactly how few people I know.
The only person we still see who we know is Charlie the super and he doesn't even nod. He is always so busy sorting garbage across the street and helping Comcast employees or staring off into space with his insufficient mask dangling around his neck. He looks so scared. How does all this rest on him?? It's so unfair.
People keep posting guilt tripping statements about how what we do right now shows our true colors about --insert whatever cause they talk about normally-- and how easy it is to just do the safe thing but how we will be judged by how we helped during this time. Or how we did not. And all the while our mayor and governor and CDC say, "do not leave your home. Do not come in contact with anyone." And I worry about jesse's weird undiagnosed lung thing that may or may not exist but what if it did. And they say its not bad for kids but what if they find out later it is. And random people keep asking if I'm at risk because of my auto immune disease and I didn't think I was but it's unnerving being asked. And what if I help our neighbors and get them sick. But are these all just excuses?
I went out yesterday-- so empty but also so many essential workers. People still riding busses. Postal workers still taking contaminated mail, their counters taped over with plastic wrap to the ceiling but that does nothing if the person mailing something has sneezed in the last fifteen minutes before standing at their counter. Cops still helping scared, scurrying, masked people cross the street around abandoned street construction sites--how do you stay six feet away from someone who can't leave the middle of the cross walk??? And grocery store employees, not even paid a living wage, who suddenly find themselves essential workers... who live with elderly relatives because, again, they aren't paid a living wage. Photos of subway cars filled with minority, hourly workers float accusingly before our homebound eyes. How can I do nothing???? What can I do????
I desperately want to check in with our downstairs neighbors but I'm afraid that even a note will be contaminated and kill them. I want to apologize for our dance parties and stools made into strollers by a three year old and dragged relentlessly across their ceiling.
Day 23----
I finished my mask so I went out to restock milks and produce from Alibaba up on the Bowery. A lady ran into me in line. It's so small. How is it even possible to not get sick getting groceries? Everyone tried to stay six feet apart. We took turns in each aisle but by taking turns to get dry goods we were less than six feet apart from the others waiting in line to check out.
Walking home, panicking about the insides of my coat pocket and my wallet and why did I wear my long coat cause now its covered in whatever was on the shopping basket. And yet I keep thinking about all the times in my life when I've been more panicked. About the weeks and months following 9/11-- me, a near teen, fully 3,000 miles away, sleeping on the floor of my parents room, waking up screaming replaying the scene that I didn't even see because we didn't have a tv. But the radio was enough to haunt my [lack] of sleep for well over a year. And for years before that the war movies my brothers and dad insisted on watching cause they outnumbered me and I needed to prove that I was tough and I totally liked them too-- wwii haunting my [lack] of sleep for years. And now, and now, I live here. In New York City. The place my dad tried to comfort me by saying we were 3,000 miles away from it. That no one would crash a plane into Tacoma, Wash. And now everything is cancelled--everything "hasn't been cancelled since World War Two" - every news source and radio host 24/7. The world held hostage.
Before bed the other night bambi sat up and said,
"I have a sad story to tell you. The germs are holding our door shut. It's horrible. In the streets, more and more and more."
-coronavirus interpreted by a three year old.
I finished my mask so I went out to restock milks and produce from Alibaba up on the Bowery. A lady ran into me in line. It's so small. How is it even possible to not get sick getting groceries? Everyone tried to stay six feet apart. We took turns in each aisle but by taking turns to get dry goods we were less than six feet apart from the others waiting in line to check out.
Walking home, panicking about the insides of my coat pocket and my wallet and why did I wear my long coat cause now its covered in whatever was on the shopping basket. And yet I keep thinking about all the times in my life when I've been more panicked. About the weeks and months following 9/11-- me, a near teen, fully 3,000 miles away, sleeping on the floor of my parents room, waking up screaming replaying the scene that I didn't even see because we didn't have a tv. But the radio was enough to haunt my [lack] of sleep for well over a year. And for years before that the war movies my brothers and dad insisted on watching cause they outnumbered me and I needed to prove that I was tough and I totally liked them too-- wwii haunting my [lack] of sleep for years. And now, and now, I live here. In New York City. The place my dad tried to comfort me by saying we were 3,000 miles away from it. That no one would crash a plane into Tacoma, Wash. And now everything is cancelled--everything "hasn't been cancelled since World War Two" - every news source and radio host 24/7. The world held hostage.
Before bed the other night bambi sat up and said,
"I have a sad story to tell you. The germs are holding our door shut. It's horrible. In the streets, more and more and more."
-coronavirus interpreted by a three year old.
2.4.20
Day 22----
Aside from getting the mail once we haven't left the building in six days. A few days ago bambi asked for a cat doll so we have been making one together (she helped stuff it). I finished it during her nap and I made it a mask.
There's a line from the movie, Frances Ha, " I have trouble leaving places", that I keep thinking of because its a bit unnerving how easily these six days have passed. Not easy, but I don't even notice the not leaving bit. I used to spend huge swaths of my days trying to leave. I started writing these notes during a time when I couldn't make myself leave our room.
Aside from getting the mail once we haven't left the building in six days. A few days ago bambi asked for a cat doll so we have been making one together (she helped stuff it). I finished it during her nap and I made it a mask.
There's a line from the movie, Frances Ha, " I have trouble leaving places", that I keep thinking of because its a bit unnerving how easily these six days have passed. Not easy, but I don't even notice the not leaving bit. I used to spend huge swaths of my days trying to leave. I started writing these notes during a time when I couldn't make myself leave our room.
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